“2+2=5”- A Denial of What is Evident? Francesco Rasola at Milan Fashion Week

Francesco Rasola is on the EDGE Radar for a very good reason. He thinks, he makes you think, he uses fashion as messaging – as an art of language.

Our last connection with Francesco was from his collection, “It’s Just Matter of Time” [please reference our Stop! In Front of Time interview with him]. Here, his messaging is how ‘our life is a slave of time’. With his new collection, “2+2=5”, Francesco makes us think about the importance of individual thinking, which he says “is not influenced by the masses, only exhilarated by the prophetic thought”. He likes to be inspired and create in a vacuum.

“2+2=5” collection is inspired by the song of the same title by the English rock band Radiohead, released as the third and final single from their sixth album Hail to the Thief in 2001. The song’s title recalls the symbol of unreality from George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the book, inhabitants of an authoritarian future state are made to engage in doublethink, replacing their own conscience and beliefs with those imposed from above. The “Thought Police” in the novel coerce self-aware citizens into admitting that two plus two equals five to prove the point that even though two plus two does not logically equal five, logic does not matter when no one else is willing to agree that two plus two equals anything else, under threat of pain or death.[1]

Francesco, once again, is daring in concept and execution. He showcased his “2+2=5” collection at Fashion Scout, London Fashion Week, and Super Pitti, Milan Fashion Week. EDGE recognizes Francesco’s bold, independent, and courageous efforts in shifting the fashion conversation to one of meaning and substance.